Orphan pups get rottweiler mum

12:56pm Friday 21st March 2008

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The future looked grim for orphaned sheepdog pups - until a rottweiler took them on as her own.

Cowling farmer Lisa Wilkinson feared the worst when her working sheepdog Belle died on Friday during a difficult labour.

Left to hand-rear four helpless, blind puppies, Lisa frantically phoned around in search of a foster mum and even put out an appeal on Cowling-based Drystone Radio.

Her search drew a blank, but then Joanne Town-Jones, landlady of Cowling's Bay Horse Pub, told her about a rottweiler in the village which had also just had pups.

Fortunately, rottweiler Kia, who had 11 four-week-old puppies of her own, proved herself the perfect mum.

"We brought them around at 10pm on Friday night and Kia just gave them a lick and let them suck straight away. It was amazing," said Lisa, 37.

Kia's owner, Joanne Wilson, 28, who has had the four-year-old since she was a pup, said she had not been surprised. "She's so soft, she's been great with them even though she's got 11 of her own," said Joanne.

Kia, pregnant for the first time, had 13 puppies, but two died. Joanne, who has two children, two-year-old Joe and Katie, eight, and whose aunt and uncle breed rottweilers, said Kia had never been aggressive.

"All this bad press about rottweilers, it's just not fair," she said. "It's all about how they are brought up and the people who bring them up."

She said rottweilers, originally bred to pull carts and as guards, made perfect pets if handled properly.

"If you keep a rottweiler chained up all the time and buy one and use it as a fighting dog, then of course it'll be dangerous and I always say no dog should be trusted with children."

Lisa plans to leave her puppies - two dogs and two bitches - with Kia until they are weaned at about three weeks.